It really is lovely. I had the same thought about refining interactions a bit -- I would also suggest Meadow by Might & Delight as an example of nonverbal communication done well.

You need to click on npc to start conversation, one of them is office worker, he will give you a delivery

I thought it could be operated entirely from the keyboard, thanks for the tip on clicking! lol

I also didn't really understand how to do it, but I liked the game, it's so beautiful and peaceful, it's a shame there's no chat and you have to speak through emojis.

Some people have an arrow on top of their head, and when you approach them there is a dialog balloon with "...". If you click on them they give you a task.

Thanks

I played for a few minutes. I wasn't able to deliver packages either.

The game doesn't really explain that too well. You have to go find the packages first before you can deliver it. For example the old lady asks you to deliver an offering at a temple.

Teaching gameplay without an overt tutorial is a difficult skill, maybe this dev can pull it off? It's hard to get into the "new player" headspace without feedback from actual playtesters.

After clicking through the first popups with the player's inner monologue, I fully expected some help text like "Use W S A D to move" to pop up.

I had no real reason for that expectation, except this is how several games I played in recent years handled it - which made me realize now, that explaining gameplay to new players is something that's actively evolving. There may not be a rulebook, but there are clear trends.

He did not pull it off. You can't click on things, there are no "you can't do this yet" signs if you get to the temple without a package, there is no "following your nose at the start leads to your first quest". Utterly inscrutable.

That's part of the charm, in my opinion. It encourages just trying things out and learning on the fly. With such low stakes, I think it was a great way to go.

If you find a guy in a cave, you're on to your first delivery.

The game is wonderful and I'm so glad it doesn't have chat! My 9yo niece and I played it through side by side and if it had chat or consistent remote player presence that wouldn't have been appropriate.

That's why I suggested other means of communication other than chat.

Absolutely - I love those. I wonder if there are any other simple web games like this that run on mobile with more nuanced interplayer comms as you suggest.

Hearthstone (while not web-based) is a deck building game that you play against others and you can only communicate with a small set of inoffensive phrases that cover broad sentiments. Makes multiplayer endurable, and you can turn them off if you like.

There's a poop symbol on the bottom right, click it to see ways to communicate.

I was surprised to learn the random messengers are other humans!

I think it's the curvature of the world that's making it run so well on mobile. There's never to much models on-screen to draw.

Don’t neglect that 2020+ mobile chips are better at graphics than PlayStation 4.

I did not know that.

Even if it is only true in theory, it is still amazing to know.

Fun quip but doesn't seem to be true in practice (if we're talking strictly smartphones, not tablets).

PS4 specs: ~1.84 TFLOPS FP32, 18 GCN CUs @ 800 MHz, 8 GB GDDR5 @ 176 GB/s.

I think maybe some released-yesterday phone might get close on spikes/bursts, but not on any sustained loads, like gaming, nor would the beat the PS4 on image quality either.

The CPU on the iPhone 13 mini (apple’s last phone, in my opinion) wins:

https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-sony_playstation_5...

Shader throughput (shader count times base clock) is similar too: https://gadgetversus.com/processor/apple-a15-bionic-vs-amd-l...

The iPhone wins on boost shader throughput by a lot, but that’ll throttle. The ps4 has more, slower gpu cores. Not sure how gpu memory bandwidth compares.

The curvature makes the world seem big and gives quite beautiful scenic view when you are on the rooftop of a building in the town.

It also gives an eerie, otherworldly feelings when there's only sky ahead, taking more than 2/3 of the screen, and looking more like water flowing vertically. I had few moments when I suddenly felt like I'm inside a bubble, staring at its wall curving upwards.

This game is beautiful in every way.

You can communicate by sending emojis with the menu in the bottom right.

If you have a keyboard, then upper keys 1-2...9-0 do all the emojis as hotkeys. Ex, 9 does the takeout food, which is probably meant to be "busy, eating" or something similar.

I had a great time jumping around and some other runners joined me and I realized I wasn't the only one playing. We began to communicate via jumping.

Reminds me of dancing with random strangers in "Playstaion Home" on the PS3

I’ll admit to missing PlayStation Home. In some ways it was ahead of it’s time. And looking at what’s available now, I’d argue it seems it still is.

If you want to play as the only player, use Safari on the Mac. The downside is, your clothes are constantly changing.

I do not play video games, but I played this one through till the end and wish there was more to explore.

> The fluidity on a mobile device? It's fantastic.

Said more about it here[0] already, but the game works perfectly on a foldable and takes the folding/unfolding in stride, without breaking a sweat. You can also see it on desktop by resizing your browser window to change size and aspect ratio (it's probably the same code paths handling it anyway).

Given how almost all mobile and web games I played manage to get this scenario wrong in some way, I applaud the authors for making all the right choices.

--

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45403407

The font is really awful. Misunderstanding aesthetics from difference cultural sources to feed to people who will take them at a surface level, there's nothing of substance. It's giving [0] and it's bad vibes, nothing should aspire to this. It leads me to question every other emotional connection I might otherwise have with the experience.

[0] https://i.redd.it/jv2yw7uqmu3e1.png

> ....The fluidity on a mobile device? It's fantastic...I wasn't able to deliver packages but I was too mesmerized to be mad about that. Beautiful game. Kudos.

exactly, realy well made!